Pirate's Cove

This is Stage 5 of The 8 Stages Of Liberal/Progressive Discussion When They Are Busted: “Concoct strange defenses based on wild psychological discourse, which no one understands, including the writer, but it sounds good, and allows a liberal/progressive to say there is no problem.” In this case, The Week writer Damon Linker attempts to project that psychological discourse on conservatives, or, as he sneeringly writes numerous times ” neocons”

The real reason hawks hate the Iran nuclear deal

….(a long whine about Dick Cheney)….

Like most pundits pronouncing on the deal, I possess no special expertise about Iran, and I’m not privy to the intelligence assessments that world leaders get to see. All I have to go on is who’s lining up for and against the deal, and the arguments they make. And this is what I see:

On the pro side, we have Brent Scowcroft, Fareed Zakaria, dozens of former Israeli military officials, dozens of retired American generals and admirals, a wide array of experts on nuclear non-proliferation, and the president of the United States.

On the anti side, we have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who has been warning ominously about an imminent Iranian nuclear breakout since — and no, I’m not joking — 1992), every Republican running for president and just about every Republican in Congress (though they’re quite comfortable displaying their ignorance of the deal’s details and the rudiments of Middle East policy and diplomacy), every single neoconservative pundit who was every bit as certain that we just hadto go to war to take out Saddam Hussein, and now the vice president who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which by this point onlyfools and ideologues deny was a blunder of world-historical proportions.

Mr. Linker forgot the roughly 57% of the American people oppose the deal. 56% say Congress should reject the deal. And the numbers get worse as we learn more and more about the deal.

Here’s where it gets fun. And weird

But such empirical considerations are beside the point. Facts have nothing to do with why most opponents reject the deal. They reject it because of an a priori suspicion of diplomacy and negotiation, which prevails in all times and places, regardless of the circumstances.

See? It’s so simple! All those people mentioned, and the people polled which aren’t mentioned, are against the deal because they’re against negotiation and diplomacy! It’s so simple. It has nothing to do with the deal kicking the can down the road. Or that it would be damned near impossible to “snap-back” the sanctions. Nor that Iran will block US citizens from being part of any inspections. Or that inspections can take weeks to start. Or that the Iranians will be allowed to inspect their own military nuclear facility. Or that Iran has stated it will ignore weapons and missile bans. Or that the deal will allow Iran to become flush with cash, which will go to terrorism and attack on US citizens. Or, etc and so on.

Nope, it must be because we don’t like diplomacy and negotiations!

The screed leads to this NY Times op-ed, arguing the same thing. Of course, both articles are meant to deflect attention away from the reality of this being a bad deal. Which it is. Period.

Crossed at Right Wing News.